The Hartle-Hawking Model

Stephen Hawking, in an attempt
to escaping the beginning of the universe, and hence the need for a
Creator, has postulated that there is a point history of the universe
where the equations of general relativity (on which his space-time theorem
was based) might break down. In 1983 Stephen Hawking and James Hartle
proposed that since we cannot determine conditions in the universe before
10-43 seconds after its origin, perhaps some unknown phenomenon
would have replaced the laws of general relativity. Therefore, the
universe might not have originated from a true singularity (beginning from
an infinitely small volume). Appealing to quantum physics seen at the
level of subatomic particles, they claimed that the universe could have
just popped into existence out of absolutely nothing at the beginning of
time. In his theory, Hawking employed the use of imaginary time, analogous
to the use of imaginary numbers in mathematics. Neither imaginary time nor
imaginary numbers exist in the real world, so their use in describing the
real universe is somewhat artificial. Even Hawking makes this admission:

Only if we could picture the
universe in terms of imaginary time would there be no singularities....
When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there
will still appear to be singularities (Hawking, S.W. 1988. A Brief
History of Time, pp. 138-139).

Most likely, Hawking is trying
to avoid the implications of general relativity that time had a beginning
at the instant of the Big Bang. If time had a beginning, then the events
that led to the Big Bang must lie outside of time - a second dimension of
time. The Bible also claims that God was acting before the beginning of
time and is not confined to it. It was these implications that Hawking was
trying to avoid in his model.

http://www.godandscience.org/slideshow/sld014.html
Last Modified October 4, 2004